71st Carnival of Genealogy: Local History

I've certainly been neglecting this blog and I hope to do better in the future!

Now for my entry for the 71st edition of the Carnival of Genealogy:

The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: Local History! As genealogists, we are used to tracing our ancestors and the history of the places they lived. But not all of us live where our ancestors did - do we take the time to see the history all around us? Use some of your investigative skills to research the house, street, or town/city where YOU live. Write about an interesting person, place, or event of local history. The deadline for submissions is May 1st. This edition of the COG will be hosted by Donna at What's Past is Prologue.

Back in March, I was out at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh to fulfill three Find a Grave photo requests. The family name was Bagley, and when I found the graves, I realized that this family was important to the history of this state. In the family plot was the grave of Jonathan Worth, a governor of North Carolina during Reconstruction, and the Bagleys were the family of his daughter, Adelaide Worth Bagley. You can see the grouping to the right showing Gov. Worth's grave behind those of his grandson on the left and his daughter and son-in-law's on the right. This piece of obscure local history concerns the grandson whose name was Worth Bagley.



This photo shows the back of Worth Bagley's gravestone which tells of his service in the Spanish-American War. He was the first officer killed, and the only line officer of the Navy to die in that war. He was 24 years old. I snapped some photos and didn't think much about the family for a while.

However, fate seemed to want me to know more about Worth Bagley. During the first week of April, my husband and I were walking on the grounds of the NC State Capitol looking at the memorials and other historical markers there when I came across the statue in the photograph to the right. You guessed it, that's Worth Bagley, probably as he looked when his family last saw him. The inscription on the base reads:

Worth Bagley
ENSIGN USN
FIRST FALLEN
1898

I imagine that the heartbreak they must have felt in losing such a promising young man and their pride that he gave his life for his country led them to do whatever it took to make sure that he would always be remembered!

Click on their names to see the memorials for Ensign Bagley and Governor Worth on Find a Grave.

68th Carnival of Genealogy: A Tribute to Women

From Destination: Austin Family comes these instructions for the 68th Carnival of Genealogy:

And now it's time for a Call for Submissions! In keeping with the month of March being National Women's History Month, and March 8th being International Women's Day, the topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will once again be: A Tribute to Women. Write a tribute to a woman on your family tree, a friend, a neighbor, or a historical female figure who has done something to impact your life. Or instead of writing, consider sharing a photo biography of one woman's life. Or create a scrapbook page dedicated to a woman you'd like to honor. The next edition will be hosted at Creative Gene. The deadline for submissions is March 15th.

My entry is not a tribute, but rather a call for information that is inspired by the hope that someday I will be able to understand the decisions of a mystery woman.

For this subject, I have decided to write about a woman in my family who is almost completely unknown to me, my maternal grandmother, Mattie (Tobert) Shrewsbury. My mother's earliest memories are of living with her grandfather William Tolbert and his second wife. Her grandfather died when she was 6, and she continued to live with her "Grandma Anna" until Anna died, and after that, she lived with Anna's brother so Mom had no contact with her birth family until 2001 when she was finally able to reunite with her two sisters who remembered her as a baby.

My mother's only memory of her "real" mother happened not long after William Tolbert died. Mattie came to visit her, perhaps to see about getting her daughter back. She came with a man who was never introduced to my mom. He scared Mom by telling her that Mattie was her real mom, causing my mom to run to Anna and say "This is my mommy!" Mattie and the man left after that and she was never heard from again...at least by anyone we've been in contact with since. My mom has often remarked that the experience must have been very hurtful for Mattie if what she wanted was a relationship with her daughter.

Grandma was born Mattie Tolbert in August of 1897 in Carroll County, Virginia. She is mentioned in her parents divorce (filed in 1898 in Carroll County and granted in 1903) as Mattie Haner Tolbert. I've often wondered if the name "Haner" might have been a phonetic misspelling of the name "Hannah". In the 1900 census, Mattie was living with her mother, Rhoda, and Rhoda's mother, Sarah Webb. The other three living children of William and Rhoda lived in William's home. Despite the fact that William and Rhoda had divorced in 1903, they reconciled sometime before 1910. In the census for Trap Hill District of Raleigh County, West Virginia, the couple was living together and had another son, Claud, aged 3 and born in WV. That's the last written record of Mattie that I have found. She seems to be completely absent from the census in 1920 & 1930, I have found no record of her marriage to the father of her children, George Shrewsbury, and none of her 4 (known) children had birth certificates. Sometime after my mother was born, she left George and took my mother to William and Anna. Her other children were farmed out to other relatives. George remarried to a woman with sons, one of whom shot George to death in 1950, claiming that George was abusive and the 17 year old step-son had feared for his life.

The circumstances of George Shrewsbury's death gives some credence to a story I was told at the reunion of my mother and her sisters in 2001 by one of my new-found cousins. She told me that some people in the family had always believed that George, thinking that Mattie had been unfaithful and that my mother was not his child, had murdered Mattie and her baby and that he had hidden their bodies so that they had never been found. Obviously, I am extremely grateful that it didn't happen that way, but it also seems that an anecdote so horrible wouldn't have been passed down if there wasn't something about George Shrewsbury that made it credible.

My mom still has a lot of anger towards Mattie for abandoning her, and can't understand how Mattie could have left her other children, either. The rumor that George had killed Mattie gives me some compassion for a woman who might have left in fear for her life.

I would love to someday find someone who could tell me where Mattie went after my mom last saw her. That encounter had to have occurred after 1939, which was when William Tolbert died. My hope is that she was able to move on and have a peaceful and productive life after she disappeared from her family.

My Genealogy Happy Dance!

From: kinexxions: The Winter Carnival has Arrived!

The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: "The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy." Almost everyone has experienced it. Tell us about the first time, or the last time, or the best time. What event, what document, what special find has caused you to stand up and cheer, to go crazy with joy? If you haven't ever done the Happy Dance, tell us what you think it would take for you to do so."

This is a tough one. Surely, we've all had those moments, and I know I can't share all of mine here. And I know, as soon as I make this entry, I'll remember something I should have chosen instead.

Should I pick my first? Or my latest? Or maybe I should write about the first thing that entered my mind when I read the topic?

Well, the first time I felt like doing the "Happy Dance" was way back in 1997. I had a list of names that my 1st cousin had entered into his genealogy program. In it, it mentioned that our earliest known Atkinson ancestor had lived in Ohio County VA (now WV). I didn't even have a clue where that was, but I went to the Internet to see what I could find out. That was when I discovered Genweb. After finding that there was a page for Ohio County, I started looking thru the genealogy postings until I found a query that mentioned Robert Atkinson, who might have been the earliest white settler in Guernsey County, OH. Robert was the brother of my 4th great-grandfather, James Atkinson. That was the first time I made contact with anyone researching the same family that I was and it was a turning point in my life!

Another time was something I've written about here previously. You can read about my serendipitous discovery of the graves of my 3rd great-grandparents in my first Tombstone Tuesday entry HERE.

But since most of my most happy discoveries have been by accident while browsing records (something I consider a benefit of having a family that stayed in the same area for many generations), I want to tell you about a "Happy Dance" moment that came as a result of real planning on my part! Sometime back in 2001, I received information from a distant cousin that mentioned that Nancy Jane Wolfe, the g-g-g-grandmother whose grave I found by accident in 2005, had been born Nancy Jane Chase. That obviously gave me a whole new avenue to check out. Since most of that part of my family lived in West Finley Twp, Washington County, PA, I started looking for possible Chase families in the census for that area. The most likely candidate to be her father seemed to be a man named Barnabas Chase who lived in West Finley and had been born in Massachusetts. Since Nancy was married before 1850, I knew the census wouldn't help me decide whether Barnabas was the right guy or not. I searched the Internet and found quite a bit of information about Barnabas and his family back in Massachusetts, including family trees back to the 1600s when his ancestor William Chase came to America with John Winthrop, but nothing that showed any of his children. My next hope was that Barnabas Chase had left a will. I found an index entry that indicated that he had, but no transcript or abstract that would tell me who was mentioned in that will.

In those days, my husband traveled to a computer conference in Salt Lake City every March, and I would go along and spend the whole week in the Family History Library. Since it was nearly that time of year, I added "Search for the will of Barnabas Chase" to my to-do list. And when I got to the FHL, that's the first thing I did! You can imagine how happy I was when I read this line in the will:

...my daught Nancy Wolff has got hir hundred...

I think I made a noise while I was sitting there in the dark at the microfilm and when I went to make copies, I'm sure I told everyone I came in contact with! I think what makes that experience so special is the fact that I had a hope for what I would find, and that's exactly what I found! That's the moment that always comes to mind when I think of a genealogy Happy Dance!

You can see Nancy's pedigree HERE. And below is the full text of Barnabas Chase's will, as transcribed by me from a photocopy:

Will #344,
Willbook #9, page 503
Washington County, PA

Will of Barnabas Chase

I Barnabas Chase of West Finley Township Washington County do make this my last will and testament first I commit my soule to God how give it and my body to the earth from whence it came--- 2 that my executors pay all my just debts, 3d I will my son James Chase the farm where he now lives forever, and I will my son Joseph Chase Eighty Acres of the home farm of the South west side Going McNays so to run a parlel line so it will be an equal breuth from Southerland heirs clene thrugh land I will my son John Chase the balance of the home farm and I will my son Simen C. Chase five hundred dollars, and I will my daughter Ruth one hundred dollars-- and I will my daughter Jane Bromer One hundred dollars and my daught Nancy Wolff has got hir hundred -- and I will to my two granddaughters Mary E. McKeag and Suny E. McKeag three hundred dollars each and will the household and kitchen furnerture and the balance of my parsonly property and money is to be equally devided ammonnge my sons and daughters and I constute and appoint my son John Chase and John Burnes my executors to settle my estate in testimony thereof I set my hand and seal this 30 day of July 1866.

Barnabas Chase (seal)
test
Wm Jordan
Millin M. Sutherland

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Washington County SS

Be it remembered that on this 1st day of June before me I. Y. Hamilton Register for the Probate of Wills and granting Letters of Adminstration within and for the said County came Wm Jordon & Wm M. Sutherland the subscribing witnesses to the foregoing attached will of Barnabas Chase deceased who after being duly qualified according to law, depose and say; that they were present at the execution of said will, saw the testator sign the same -- heard him publish that they at his request, in his presence & in the presence of each other subscribed their names thereto as witnesses and at the time of doing so the said testator was of sound and disposing mind, memory and understanding to the best of their knowledge observation and belief.

Sworn and subscribed before I. Y. Hamilton Regr.

Wm Jordan
W. M. Sutherland

And now June 1 1870 it being adjudged that the said will has been duly proven and John Burns one of the executors being deceased & the other executor John Chase having renounced his right to the same, Letters are issued to J. W. Hancher by agreement who was duly sworn by

I. Y. Hamilton Regr.

Carnival of Genealogy: A Winter Photo Essay

The Carnival of Genealogy, 63rd Edition has been posted!

And now it's time for a Call for Submissions! The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: A Winter Photo Essay. Show us those wintertime photo(s) of your ancestors or family members and tell us the story that goes along with them. Winter is here! Let's record it and celebrate it! The deadline for submissions is January 15th.

Having lived here in North Carolina for over 10 years now, it almost seems out of season to be thinking about snow, although we did have flurries for a few minutes back in November. I always think I miss real winter-like weather until I happen to be visiting somewhere farther north during cold & snowy times!



According to what was written on the back of the 6 photos in the slideshow, they were taken during the winter of 1939-1940. Most of the children shown were my dad's sisters and his brother: Elizabeth, Louise, David, Charlotte and Jim, my dad--the baby of the family. My dad is in only one of these, the second shot that shows a toddler sitting on a sled. They were the children of Charles and Rowene (Fife) Atkinson. At the time of when these photos were taken, Grandma and Pappap lived along 4th Street in Moninger, Pennsylvania.

And one more photo, taken years later showing the view from my grandparents' front porch at 235 Reed Avenue, Houston, PA, looking towards the southeast.I always loved this view. My grandparents moved into that house long before I was born, so it was the only place they lived while I knew them. The last I heard, one of Grandma's nephews bought the house after Pappap died. I find it comforting to know it's still owned by family.

Resolutions

I'm gonna get this one in on time :)

Here's the description for the next Carnival of Genealogy project:

The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: New Year's Resolutions! What plans do you have for your genealogy research next year? How about for your blogging? No groaning or whining now. Write 'em up and let us know! The deadline for submissions is January 1st, 2009.

See: Creative Gene: Carnival of Genealogy, 62nd Edition

I'm such a procrastinator, I always have tons of things I should be doing, so it's easy to come up with a list of things I NEED to get done!

1. My little sister, who was adopted by my dad, tracked down her biological father and now has a relationship with him and his wife. About a year ago, I offered to do some research on his family for her, and then promptly forgot what she told me his surname was. I finally got over my embarrassment enough to ask her again, and I fully intend to fulfill that promise! It'll be good practice for me, by coincidence, he lives about 50 miles from me here in NC, and I'm very close to the NC State Archives. I have little reason to visit to research my own relatives there.
   
2. One of my long-time goals has been to scan all my paper records into PDF files and organize them. Last Spring I upgraded my Adobe Acrobat to version 8, which supports a paper feeder. My old version was 3, which made it necessary for me to feed the sheets one at a time to scan. Now I have little excuse to keep putting it off.
3. One of my worst habits is doing research and not getting it entered into my genealogy program. I have pages that I copied and notes that I made from two week-long visits to Salt Lake City in 2007 and 2008 that I still haven't organized and entered. It's about time, don't you think?
4. In 2005, I borrowed 10 boxes of slide projector carousels from my dad that I want to scan. Each one holds up to 80 slides, and most are full. These are photos from my young childhood and my teen years, family pictures and vacation slides. I think I've scanned 10, total. That's another thing I need to get to work on.
5. I have tons of photocopies of wills that need transcribed. That's something I find so frustrating, though, that I'll probably NOT get around to them this year!
   

I think that'll be enough to keep me busy for at least a year, don't you think? What about you?

3 wishes

I waited too long to submit this entry, but I thought, "Why not do it anyway?" I'm always looking for ideas!

Dear Genea Santa,

While my biggest wishes this year are for both my parents to continue to have a good quality of life, I know that you are only able to help me with my genealogy related material items. I had to think for a long time about the things I really want!

1. First of all, I wish I had thought to ask for my grandma's set of dishes when my grandfather died. They were pink, with tiny flowers on them, made by the Canonsburg Pottery where my grandfather worked for 40 years. A few years ago, I was able to find a similar set to buy on eBay, but I've never seen Grandma's exact pattern anywhere.

2. In his will, my g-g-g-grandfather, James P. Skiles, bequeaths pictures of his deceased daughters, Mary Ann and Rachel, to two of his then living daughters, Rebecca and Martha. If I can't have the originals, I'd love to own copies!

3. My third wish is also for photos. My mother says that she had an album full of childhood photos of herself before she was married. When she left home, an argument with her Aunt resulted in my mom NOT bringing any of her personal possessions with her. I have often wondered if that album still exists. I have never seen a picture of my mother where she was younger than 18.

I hope I'm not asking for too much. If you can get these for me, it will be my best Christmas ever! Then I hope you'll get a well-deserved rest after fulfilling everyone's genealogy wishes this year!

Love, Cherie

See more letters to Genea Santa at: Creative Gene: Carnival of Genealogy, 62nd Edition